Toxic waste imports put food in danger

Toxic waste from China and other countries is being imported and used as a raw ingredient by some Australian fertiliser manufacturers and distributors.

The wastes - from steelworks, electric-arc furnaces and zinc smelters - are being made into products that have shown heavy-metal levels up to 110,000 times higher than those which prompt NSW consumer warnings.

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They are being sold to unwitting farmers, mainly in Queensland and Western Australia, as zinc sulphate micronutrients to grow root vegetables destined for supermarkets.

The federal Department of the Environment confirmed yesterday it had intercepted two recent shipments of the material after being tipped off to the practice.

The department tested the material and classed it as hazardous waste under Australian law.

It was believed to be found to contain extremely high levels of cadmium, which can poison humans, vegetables and livestock.

''At the minute we are not prepared to talk about where it is being imported from ... We don't want to point the finger at any other country until we know more about it," a department spokesman said.

''It is an industrial residue and if you treat it correctly and subject it to chemical processes to clean it up, then you have clean zinc sulphate. The problem is shipments that haven't been cleaned up."

The department said about 340 shipments of zinc sulphate were imported just from China last year. Thousands more tonnes are believed to be coming from other countries.

The department said it was tipped off by a newspaper advertisement early last year warning farmers of the practice.

It was placed by a Sydney company, Hardman Australia, which stopped making the product after it was undercut by cheap imports.

''What we are talking about is the dross from zinc smelters, the stuff that floats to the top," said its managing director, John Bradley.

''They take that dross because it is cheap and nobody wants it, it is a waste, and they refine that into zinc sulphate heptahydrate.

''In doing so they finish with very high levels of toxic waste metals within the product because it is not being made from clean material."

He said importers were exploiting loopholes that do not require products to be re-tested for potential heavy-metal contaminants once they reach Australia.

''The trouble is that the Chinese are giving testing certificates on the products. But they are just lies, that's the nicest thing I can say.

''If we made that material we would be able to survive too, but we would poison everybody. It is madness. They are turning farms into waste dumps.

''And for some of this stuff, if you contaminate your ground with it, you might render it impossible to ever farm clean vegetables again."

Mr Bradley said he discovered the practice after being forced to import the material: his company had found it uneconomic to keep producing a local product to strict Australian standards.

Concerned about the Chinese certification that accompanied one shipment, he had it tested. The laboratory found it contained 11 per cent cadmium - or 110,000 parts per million.

Mr Bradley said root crops grown in soil with cadmium levels as low as 0.3 parts per million could exceed World Health Organisation guidelines.

He said the company had been priced out of the market ''because we are honest. We don't want to poison people. Everybody when they go down to the supermarket to buy their vegetables could be buying toxic, contaminated vegetables."